Bicycle made (in part) from recycled car parts

Creative agency LOLA Madrid designed and built a prototype bicycle constructed entirely out of with some components made of scrap auto parts, from a transmission belt used as the "chain" to a seat post clamp from a door handle. Bicycled (via Think Faest!)

10 Responses to “Bicycle made (in part) from recycled car parts”

No, the tubing was made from recycled car steel – that is, melted and reformed. All steel bikes likely have recycled car steel in them. The handlebar and stem were bike parts. Nothing about the rims, but the hubs certainly looked to be bike parts. The seat was covered with vinyl from a car seat, but it was still a bike seat underneath. The crank-set wasn’t mentioned.

Overall a BIG stretch to say the bike was made “entirely out of scrap auto parts”. I rate this execution of the concept a fail. And misrepresented. A more challenging project would be to actually build one from recovered parts, modified only by cutting/welding/drilling/gluing etc. More of a junk-yard project.

Seconded. Perhaps “car themed” or “made with car parts”, but both are still rather misleading. A single lamp, a re-skin of the seat and one door handle aren’t much to brag about. All presentation, no content. Should go down a storm in hipster circles. ;P

Was hoping to see wheel-hubs cut down to make bike rims, bearings re-used as hubs, strengthening struts from the roof used as frame, etc..

What cars have a “transmission belt”? There are timing belts, and accessory (serpentine) belts, none of which connect to the transmission. Is this a part some odd 2-cylinder product of the former Eastern Bloc used?

Some types of Continously Variable Transmissions (CVT) use belts, and are common in small cars in Europe(and increasingly so here in the US). A CVT is a type of transmission that has an infinite number of stepless gear ratios between the lowest and highest RPM. JATCO, which is a Toyota subsidiary, currently makes them for lots of car companies. The Dutch car maker DAF (bought out by Volvo in the 1970s) pioneered the use of CVTs in automobiles. They often sound weird, like a slipping automatic transmission, and have had durability problems with larger displacement engines

I’m aware of CVTs, but I’m pretty sure the belts in CVTs are shorter and broader than the one they showed being pulled from the car. It looked more like the serpentine or timing belt I mentioned. The one they used on the bike looked wider than the one pulled from the car, but seemed to be longer than a CVT belt.

It’s not a big deal. The gearhead in me would just like to have it better explained, that’s all.